LOS ALAMITOS : Breeders Classics Set Saturday

On a smaller scale, the Breeders Classics are to quarter horse racing what the Breeders’ Cup is to thoroughbred racing: a program of major stakes races, showcasing the breed’s finest horses.

The Breeders Classics will be run Saturday night at Los Alamitos, featuring eight stakes races for horses of all ages. Potential champions such as Refrigerator, Rare Form, Deceptively, Four Forty Blast, Totally Illegal and Jumping Tac Flash are expected to race.

Refrigerator, Rare Form and Four Forty Blast are the leading contenders for the $100,000-added Breeders Championship Classic, the richest race of the series. The field also includes Grand Package, Down With Debt, Flack Attack and Six To Five.

Over the last several years, the Breeders Classics have proven to be quarter horse racing’s finest hour. Several championships have been won on Breeders Classics night, and the record parimutuel handle for a quarter horse program, $2,113,523, was set during the 1990 running. The 1991 handle also exceeded $2 million.

Refrigerator, the defending world champion; Rare Form, the 1992 3-year-old champion, and Four Forty Blast, the probable 3-year-old champion of 1993, have never raced one another. Rare Form and Refrigerator were supposed to have met in last year’s Champion of Champions, but an injury forced Rare Form to the sidelines. In September, they were both pointing for the Los Alamitos Championship before Rare Form’s handlers changed their minds.

In last year’s Championship Classic at Hollywood Park, Refrigerator was the odds-on favorite. Just as the field was loaded and ready to go, Refrigerator flipped in the gate and was scratched. That same night, Rare Form won the Sophomore Classic.

Since that night, Refrigerator has won four of five starts, including three major stakes, most recently the Los Alamitos Championship on Sept. 18. The seven-week layoff between starts is not uncommon for the 5-year-old gelding, who is trained by Blane Schvaneveldt and owned by Jim Helzer of Arlington, Tex.

Schvaneveldt, 59, won his 100th quarter horse race of the meeting on Sunday, lengthening his lead in the trainers’ standings. He is the all-time leading trainer in the Breeders Classics series with 13 victories. Russell Harris is second with four.

Schvaneveldt’s stable is once again stacked with leading contenders in several races.

In the $75,000 Juvenile Classic for 2-year-olds, Schvaneveldt is expected to start two-time stakes winner Jumping Tac Flash, a leading contender for champion 2-year-old filly. Among others, she will race Develop A Plan, undefeated in four starts.

In the $25,000 Distaff Classic, Schvaneveldt will saddle defending champion Ima Ladys Alibi, who will race champion contenders Dash Master Miss and Deceptively. In the $25,000 Sprint, Schvaneveldt will start Sir Goldminer, the recent winner of the Z. Wayne Griffin Director’s Handicap, and One Slick One, who finished third in the 1992 Sprint.

He does not have a horse in the $25,000 Marathon Classic, which will be headed by 1991 winner Griswold, but will be represented in the $20,000 Sophomore Classic and the $10,000 Freshman Classic, which was divided into two divisions.

Refrigerator is his best chance. The winner of the 1990 All American Futurity is the only one of the three major contenders who won his last start. Rare Form finished fifth in the Horsemen’s Quarter Horse Racing Assn. Handicap last month, and Four Forty Blast was third in the California Derby in early October.

Besides being one of the richest races for older horses in the nation, the Breeders Championship Classic is also the last race of the year that provides an automatic berth in the Champion of Champions. The winners of five major races earn starts in the Champion of Champions.

Refrigerator has won three such races--the 1992 Champion of Champions, the World’s Championship Classic and the Los Alamitos Championship. Deceptively, a 3-year-old filly, earned a berth by winning the Rainbow Derby. The other berths will be filled in trials.

Rare Form and Four Forty Blast need to win Saturday to avoid the grueling trials.

Bob Gilbert, who trains Rare Form for Bob Moore of Norman, Okla., is hoping that Rare Form can duplicate the performances that led to a championship in 1992. This year, he has only one victory in three starts and that was a 350-yard allowance.

Four Forty Blast has raced at Los Alamitos all year, winning eight of 10 starts, four of them major stakes. His most impressive victory was against older horses in August in the Go Man Go Handicap.

*

Representatives of a group of harness owners seeking to lease Los Alamitos for racing this winter met with Los Alamitos co-owner Ed Allred last Friday and discussed leasing the track this winter.

Owner Andy Perez and trainer Bobby Gordon met with Allred for 90 minutes. It was the first time the groups have sat down, although there have been phone conversations.

The harness groups want to race through April, but Allred hopes to lease the track only until mid-March, so he can open it for training for a quarter horse meeting beginning in mid-April.

After the meeting, Perez and Gordon said they would poll the group about the feasibility of a 13-week meeting.